1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a ceramic member such as a ceramic heater or an electrostatic chuck suitably used for a heating process and the like of a semiconductor wafer in a production process and an inspection process of a semiconductor device.
2. Description of the Related Art
An art of forming a polysilicon film, an oxide film, a conductive film, a dielectric film and the like with a CVD apparatus or a sputtering system on a semiconductor wafer or, in contrast, an art of etching these films with an etching apparatus is well-known in producing a semiconductor device. In order to heat the semiconductor wafer in each process such as forming a film, etching mentioned above, these apparatuses are provided with a ceramic member provided with an electrode such as an electrostatic chuck, a heater, and an RF electrode, for example.
There is proposed a ceramic heater produced by using aluminum nitride substrate as a first ceramic substrate and combining a conductive layer formed on the substrate and a second aluminum nitride substrate covering the conductive layer with the first substrate by simultaneous burning (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. H03-236186). It is said that the ceramic heater thus structured has high thermal conductivity and that a surface thereof is heated with a homogeneous temperature distribution. However, the ceramic heater has the disadvantage of short life because of the damage caused by use at a high temperature or under rapid heating and cooling.